It is gotten cold ,,, and rainy ... so I sketched some leaves I picked up on the way home on terraskin paper. I am getting to like this paper quite a lot for its smoothness and resistance.

t  Right before I left for vacation, I took a 2-day color workshop with Jane Blundell. The topic was how to build a watercolor palette. Now, I believe that anybody who even remotely is interested in watercolors struggles with this. In my case, when I got the sketching bug 3-4 years ago, I ended up purchasing all the colors than an artist had on his palette. I was heading to Vermont for a quick intro workshop to sketching, I did not have any watercolors at all, I liked the the look of this artist\s sketches - bright and lively - the paints were at a discount and they were a good brand (Holbein). But somehow, I was never quite happy with the colors I mixed. 

Jane explained how to check the pigment composition of a color. The basic colors on the palette should be individual pigments. That has two main advantages:

• the mixes are brighter and more transparent 
• usually, the individual pigments are series 1 (with some exceptions of course), which means they are cheaper

If the color is made of multiple pigments (it is then a hue, not a pure pigment), then when mixing it with another color the results are unpredictable and the chances of making mud increase.

Looking at the composition on some of my tubes, I also noticed that some paints had black in them. No wonder I did not like how they interacted with the sketch(Payne's grey and Indigo). I also had semi-transparent colors that I hardly used because they muddied my mixes. They were eliminated from the palette. 

I added titan buff, Jane's grey, a third red, phtalo blue and goethite. Jane worked with each participant to sort out their palette based on the colors they already had. Jane;s grey is a premixed grey - ultramarine and burnt sienna. The idea is to make our own most used mixes and have them ready in the palette. That saves time and frustration when one needs to add a touch of dark or whatever. It is also cheaper in the long run. 

In addition to the basic colors, there are also convenience colors.These are personal choices, colors that speak to each individual, or convenience colors (colors that can be mixed from the single pigments but that one may chose to have as premixed colors to save time when painting, especially on location). 

We then painted a pear study to apply the newly acquired knowledge. 

I am continuing the explorations of page design and part of the ByDesign class with Roz. Great class as usual, lots of content and even more food for thought and things to ponder before getting started on a page. 

In this spread I wanted to explore the relationship color - pattern and representational - abstract. I like the result.I do not use text very often so I used pattern paper for texture.

The season at the CSA draws to a close. For the whole summer, not only I ate tasty, local, organic veggies but I also had subjects for my sketches! Two-for- one deal indeed.

I bought a new Rotring Art Pen and a bottle of Parker blue-black ink. I was assured that the ink is waterproof - which of course is not the case. 

I wanted to test the pen and the ink, so I grabbed a carrot and a bunch of kale leaves and set to work.

This is the last of the terraskin experiments. I wanted to use dry media on this one - graphite, pan pastels, pencils. I ended up adding some paint and a bit of collage in order to have more tone tone variety. I was not able to achieve the darks I wanted by using only dry media. 

In general, I find it is easier to work on terraskin then on yupo even though both papers are synthetic and have no fiber. I do have some scraps of yupo lying around the studio and they are first in line  for some experimentation as soon as I find a chunk of time for that. 

I am going to look into the possibility of using terraskin to make my own books, but I will need a it more practice with this paper first. The big appeal for me it is that the paper is resistant and I do not have to worry about the grain when I cut it. It also takes ink exceptionally well because it is very smooth. 

I call them decorative squash or decorative pumpkins, but somebody gently pointed out that they are gourds. So be it. And this is their season. We had a long and warm fall so far - cannot complain. 

Gourds make interesting subjects when one cannot go out sketching. So I painted them in various ways. 

Here are three of my sketches - watercolors, gouache and cottage paint, and collage.

I continued my experiments on terraskin paper. I took a picture of flowers when I was out walking earlier in the summer and I used that as an inspiration.

I am pleased with the results. I think what I liked the most is that the paint on this paper remains translucent. This also makes it harder to get very dark darks,